This invention relates to an adjustable tray for attachment to a wheelchair, hospital bed, airline seat or the like, having a vertical or horizontal support member.
Numerous tray and table arrangements for attachment to wheelchairs, airline and other transportation system seats and the like have been developed. Attention is directed, in part, to such U.S. Pat. Nos. as 3,215,467; 4,458,870; 3,870,362 and 3,522,887, all of which describe attachments to a seat arm for a wheelchair and which may include a tray table. Some of these attachments provide for vertical, horizontal and angular adjustments of a generalized nature but not for forward and rearward or rotational movement in a horizontal plane relative to the wheelchair occupant. Furthermore, the prior art attachments generally require numerous control knobs to effect adjustments, which may be difficult for physically challenged wheelchair or hospital bed occupants to manipulate. There remains, therefore, a need for a simplified articulating tray which is fully adjustable in a multi-directional manner including vertical, horizontal (forward and backward) and rotational movement to accommodate a wide range of functions and user body types, with a minimum of position adjustment controls, preferably no more than two. Preferably, the tray can easily be swung away from the occupant when not in use and stored in a vertical plane which utilizes minimal space. It is also desirable that the tray should be xe2x80x9cunhandedxe2x80x9d, i.e. mountable on either left or right without modification, and also easily mountable and dismountable without the use of tools, and without modification to the wheelchair or hospital bed or the like.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide an articulating tray arrangement for attachment to a support member that is fully articulating vertically, horizontally and rotationally using only two adjustment controls, that can be mounted, or dismounted from, on either side of a wheelchair or the like without the use of tools.
By one aspect of this invention there is provided a tray assembly, for attachment to a support member, comprising:
(a) a planar tray surface;
(b) support arm means pivotally connected to said planar tray surface; and
(c) connecting means for releasably and rotatably securing said support arm means to said support member; wherein
said connecting means comprises first clamping means to rotatably and slidably receive said support arm means for vertical and linear movement, and rotational movement about a vertical axis when said planar table surface is in a horizontal operative position, and for rotational movement about a horizontal axis so as to move said support arm means from a vertical operative position to a horizontal storage position, and to clamp said support arm means in any selected position; and second clamping means releasably and rotatably connected to said first clamping means for releasably securing said first clamping means to said support member.